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River City Girls 2 (Switch): COMPLETED!

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My daughter and I were big fans of the original River City Girls so the sequel was sat on my wishlist for ages waiting for a bit sale. That came around, and we played it through together.

It’s more of the same, really. A side-scrolling, semi-open-world beat-em-up with RPG elements set in the world of Kunio-kun/River City Ransom and made by Wayforward, just like the first game. It has a great cartoon style, loads of in-jokes (with both River City adjacent links, like Double Dragon and Crash And The Boys, and Wayforward properties like Mighty Switch Force) and satisfying and upgradable combat.

As it’s set in the same city as the first game, many locations are back – like school and shopping centre) although they have been modified so aren’t a complete copy-and-paste. There are plenty of new areas though. Similarly, there are both returning and new characters, although I don’t think most of the new ones are as good as the ones in the original. Also returning is another soundtrack from Megan McDuffee, which is also excellent.

The plot is mostly concerned with revenge on the Girls taking down the bad guy in the last game, although there are a couple of twists.

Gameplay-wise there are a few tweaks to improve stuff from before. Shop purchases work slightly differently, and there’s seemingly a lot more money available with which to buy them. The game seems easier too, meaning less death (which causes both progress and money loss).

It’s not all improvements though, sadly. Loading times are particularly bad, but also there are a number of bugs like items getting stuck out of reach, sound cutting out, and a few full crashes. Nothing major because of frequent save points but annoying nonetheless. Some of the new areas, like the overdone game trope of the “forest maze”, aren’t great either, and I’m sure there’s more backtracking this time round too, hindered by the aforementioned loading times.

That said, the fun, humour and style of the game massively outweigh the issues. It’s maybe not quite as enjoyable as the original, but doesn’t miss it by much.

Miss Rosen’s Wowtastic! Marching Band (Switch): COMPLETED!

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Note: A free code was given to me by the devs for review purposes for an upcoming episode of the ugvm Podcast. This isn’t a full review, just a record in my gaming diary. The full review will be over there anon.

A while back, I played the totally ridiculous Switch game About An Elf. It had a very unique art style and gameplay which teeters on the very definition of what gameplay is, and was baffling before you even got into the plot. Very few games leave me with a lasting impression like that, so when I saw Miss Rosen’s Wowtastic! Marching Band, which features the same art style because, well, it turns out it’s by the same devs and set in the same universe, there was a pang of omgneed. And here I am having completed it to tell you about it.

I’ll start with the gameplay because, frankly, that’s the only bit that makes the slightest bit of sense. Each level, or rather, episode of Miss Rosen’s TV show, you’re given a number of “packing” puzzles to complete. You have to fit things on a desk, or in a suitcase, or a box, before the time runs out. That’s easy to understand, right? It’s not quite as easy as it seems because they’re mostly real-world items with their odd shapes and sizes, and later levels add gimmicks like things that are invisible or that constantly move to make it trickier.

On it’s own, it’s no Unpacking or anything, but the rest of the game. Oh my.

So Miss Rosen is a wind-up majorette. She has a TV show where she has “adventures” each episode, and you know they’re going to be fun because she’s here! How much fun? This much fun! Quite. The “fun” mainly involves talking to bizarre people, creatures and sentient objects, and then solving the packing puzzles in order to help or defeat them as appropriate. All while assisted by a child called Dunno who wears a bandana over his mouth which completely disguises the fact that he’s really a T-Rex because obviously?

As the game goes on, you find there’s Something Bad happening, with things disappearing not only from existence, but from time itself. Then your friends disappear too. Is it the work of a magician who makes things disappear in front of your very eyes? Well, that would be too obvious, surely?

I… well. Erm.

What I really, really love about the game is the animation and art. Like About An Elf (Dam and her cat from that game make an appearance here too, actually) it’s hard to tell what is real, what is models, what is CGI, and what is your imagination because surely you can’t really be building a horse can you? Oh, you are? Righty-o. Backgrounds are filled with semi-humanoid mice that speed up and slow down. Is the sun made of plasticine or is it a woman wearing a mask? Why do all the women have hotpants on? THE CAR HAS A FACE. And WHY is the game called Miss Rosen’s Wowtastic! Marching Band when she doesn’t really have a marching band. Or even a band of any other sort. All important questions, none of which are answered and by the end you’re feeling bewildered and maybe a little bit sick like you’ve been on a Waltzer.

Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Torna – The Golden Country (Switch): COMPLETED!

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If the $hlmun of hours on the Xenoblade Chronicles 2 main game and DLC wasn’t enough, then thank $deity for this prequel spin-off! Yes, more Xenoblade! Amazing.

To be cynical for a moment, it’s clear that this was likely originally supposed to be integrated in the main game. There’s a number of flashbacks to events 500 years ago, and it’s those events that are retold in full here. You could complain about it being money-grabbing to ask you to buy two things, but when you get so much damn game for your money it’s hard to. Besides, despite being much smaller than the main game (both in terms of size and length) it’s still bigger than many other full price releases and did come with all the extra stuff for the XC2 itself.

Anyway. To the game itself!

It’s the same in many ways as Xenoblade Chronicles 2, and they’ve not drastically tweaked the gameplay. You still have blades (although each character only has two and you can’t awaken an army of them), battles are pretty similar, and even one area of the game – Gormott – is here as it was before (albeit 500 years younger with no town to speak of yet). A few things have gone, like the cloud sea “tides”, which was silly and underused anyway, and salvaging. Your main character and blades now fight directly, rather than you “channelling” your blade, but this doesn’t really change the gameplay. Crafting items is now a big thing, expanding on the cooking you could do before. Finally, there’s a new addition called “Community”, where things you do for people you meet builds your reputation. It doesn’t seem to do much, though, aside from allow access to a few more missions or skills.

The plot follows Lora, who is Jin’s driver, who joins up with Addam (Mythra’s original driver) and one of Mòrag’s ancestors Hugo, driver of Brigid and Aegaeon as they try to put down Malos before he destroys the world. You know, much like in the main game. Although it’s set 500 years in the past, there are a surprising number of recurring characters, including Mikhail (as a kid). It’s interesting to see how Jin is a good guy here, before he becomes one of the Big Bads in XC2. In fact, it’s a shame that it isn’t really fully explained why Jin and Mikhail swap sides, although both are redeemed in XC2.

So really, it’s more of the (almost) same. A few changes, some new locations, and a power where you can halve your HP in return for vastly reducing the cooldown of your skills which speeds up fighting lower-level enemies greatly – a really issue in the main game and I’m thankful for here. Probably essential playing if you liked Xenoblade Chronicles 2, and probably useless to play if you haven’t played (or at least, intend on playing) that as there’d be a load of missing context. Xenoblade Chronicles 3 before X comes out now? Why not?

Rain On Your Parade (Switch): COMPLETED!

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Rain On Your Parade is one of those silly arcade games that things like Donut County and Pool Panic. In this, you’re a sentient cloud who – initially – is mainly tasked with raining on things. After all, what else can a cloud do? You have to soak so many people or rust so many vehicles, that sort of thing.

Quickly things take a bit of a turn when you’re encouraged to cause chaos, set fire to stuff (you can hover over oil leaks and then rain oil), learn how to cause lightning, and so on. The game is framed within a Princess Bride style man telling a kid a bedtime story about this cloud, and he keeps adding to it to keep it interesting, so there’s the introduction of a baddie – Dr Dryspell – who wants nothing more than make everything dry.

Levels are varied, some short, some mere time or score attacks, and some pretty huge and complex. There’s quite some imagination going on (“rain” coffee into cups, get everyone covered in bird poo) but a special mention is needed to the first person shooter level, and the Legend of Zelda one for really stretching the formula. It’s also fun finding the references to other games, like Katamari, Metal Gear, and Power Wash Simulator.

Most of the levels have a number of “missions”, which usually require you to wet a certain number of things or complete the level without running out of water, and there are optional tasks, and even some optional hidden tasks, if you really want to go down the 100% complete route. There’s also a load of unlockable “costumes” for your cloud, like a frog hat and a chainsaw, and some minigames too.

Rain On Your Parade is quirky and funny, although a bit janky when it comes to things like collision detection and it even crashed on me a couple of times, but don’t let that put you off. A bit more polish would have been nice but it doesn’t detract from the ridiculous gameplay. Oh yes, and it has toilets. Five stars, would play again. Etc.

Club Drive: hardly drivin’

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For Christmas I received the Atari 50 compilation, which collects a large number of Atari’s most celebrated games together and presents them alongside a museum of stories, videos, and artwork spanning the fifty years of the company. It is a fabulous resource, including a lot of arcade and 2600 classics, which I will no doubt talk about in future posts.

As well as games from the early years, there are some titles from the Lynx and the Jaguar. There are some high profile games missing, I presume because of licensing issues or because they weren’t developed by Atari – Aliens v Predator on the Jaguar, and Blue Lightning on the Lynx, are two that stand out. The Jaguar titles therefore seem a little scattergun, but it’s a good opportunity to play some I don’t own the cartridges for.

If you have seen my my to do list over the last decade or so, you’ll have seen I aspired to own Club Drive for the Jaguar. That wish has finally come true, in an approximate way, and I’m glad I didn’t spend more time chasing it. Because Club Drive is pants.

The key problem is that it’s largely uncontrollable. You accelerate with the right trigger, and turn with the d-pad (or left analogue). But to turn more sharply if a corner requires it, you pull back on the d-pad (or stick) as well as holding the direction. No need to slow down, your car suddenly just develops a smaller turning circle.

Get too near to the side of a cliff and the car will often decide to jump off itself. If it does, the game rewinds itself to a point just before you fell, and then the car invariably falls off again. Often this is accompanied with an unexpected change in viewing angle, so you have little hope of recovery, unless you rewind a lot further.

There are three modes: collect ten sphere things dotted around the level; race from one end of the level to the other (and back again); and a tag game for two players only. The collection game is painfully slow and dull. Racing is against the clock only, and I was doing well at this on the Wild West stage until I hit a hidden flashing wall which bizarrely transported me to the front of the Atari office building. It’s just all really janky.

Imagine this moving at 2 frames per second and you’re pretty much there.

I have raced on all four of the levels, plus the super secret course (which isn’t so secret on Atari 50 since there’s a message to press X to select it, I presume because it previously required a combination on the Jaguar keypad) – the latter was absolutely no fun at all since I couldn’t see where to go or control the car on the ramps. I don’t think I’ll persist with it.